The last time the stock market did this, the US was in a recession

"US [earnings per share] growth has been very disappointing this
year, with Q3 earnings likely to decline (yoy) for the second
quarter in a row," Societe Generale's Patrick Legland said on
Monday. "Our
Equity Quant team notes that profits growth has never been
this weak outside of a recession."

"The estimated
earnings decline for Q3 2015 is -5.1%,"
FactSet's John Butters said on Friday. "If this is the final
earnings decline for the quarter, it will mark the first time the
index has seen two consecutive quarters of year-over-year
declines in earnings since Q2 2009 and Q3 2009. It will also mark
the largest year-over-year decline in earnings since Q3 2009
(-15.5%)."

According to the
National Bureau of Economic Research, the most recent recession
spanned fromDecember 2007toJune
2009.

"It's
amazing how forgiving the general commentary has been on profits
and even the broad economy," Bianco said in an August email to
Business Insider. "Many
seem to celebrate the absence of a recession. The labor
market continues to tighten, and thus I expect the Fed to hike,
but other than some bright spots like auto and housing, growth is
extremely weak with underlying drivers like productivity and
investment disturbingly poor and S&P profits are not
growing."

Of course,
it's only after earnings season is over that we'll know what
really happened.

Still, some
warn that not negative doesn't necessarily mean great.

The weak
third-quarter earnings estimates "could partly reflect companies
guiding down to beat expectations, but we believe US earnings
could be at risk longer-term," HSBC's Ben Laidler said on Monday.
"Our top-down model points to just 2% EPS growth for 2016,
compared to consensus expectations of 10%. This consensus is
based on a
further widening of margins, but we find this implausible
with margins already high, and wages starting to pick
up."